Call of Duty WWII reveals release date, new modes, more

Activision just held the most visceral livestream ever, to officially reveal Call of Duty: WWII.

First up, the guys from developer Sledgehammer Games confirmed that leaked release date of November 3, and announced that pre-ordering the game grants you access to the private beta. There's no word on when the beta is out yet, but our favourite people from PlayStation Access did reveal that PS4 users will get the beta first.

We then moved onto the story, which takes place during the later years of World War II as the Allied Forces push back against the Nazis. Confirmed characters for the campaign include a female French resistance leader called Rousseau, and a Jewish-American Private called Robert Zussman.

Meanwhile, your playable character is a guy called (wait for it) Private 'Red' Daniels. Bosch star Jeffrey Pierce and Transformers' Josh Duhamel have signed on to play characters called Turner and Pierson, respectively.

Duhamel said the script for the game was better than any movie he had ever worked on (even better than Revenge of the Fallen?!) and added that his character was "a dick". Lovely.

Photo credit: Activision

Sledgehammer said there will be a proper multiplayer reveal at this year's E3 but did drop a few hints about what we can expect come November.

First up is the imaginatively titled 'War' mode, which is basically Allies vs Axis PvP with lots of different objectives and whatnot. There's also 'Divisions' mode, where you can create a character from scratch and choose from a list of specialised classes that all have their own set of skills and multiplayer progression.

Most intriguingly for the online is 'Headquarters', which got a very brief video reveal. It is being touted as a 'living space' where players can compare and compete and tinker with things outside of matches. Think PlayStation Home, but still existing.

Each mode promises to be very visceral.

Photo credit: Activision

Returning to the campaign, we were hit with a double whammy: not only is Nazi zombies coming back, but it is the leaked co-operative story mode! The narrative of this mode sees the Third Reich turn to supernatural experiments (don't they always?) in a desperate attempt to win the war.

And that's our lot for now. Obviously, fans who don't care much for the offline modes and just want to jump into head-shotting 12-year olds will have to wait until E3 for more info, but if the game proves to be even half as visceral as the livestream was, we're excited.